
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 18, 1992                   TAG: 9203180089
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CHILD-PROOF . . . BUT NOT SENIOR-PROOF

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says hundreds of children's lives have been saved by safety caps on medicine containers, but in times of pain many an adult groping for aspirin has cursed their existence.

In fact, elderly adults often just give up, leaving the lids on their medicines off or loosened, creating a hazard for children, the commission said Tuesday.

To cure that problem, the commission is urging design of a cap that appeals to thinking rather than physical strength. And to test the product it will use people aged 60 to 75 instead of the strapping 18- to 45-year-olds who have been in the test groups in the past.

The agency has been working for years on a new test.

The children's part of the test would continue to be accomplished by giving 3- and 4-year-olds, in groups of two, five minutes to try to open the container. An adult then demonstrates how it's done and the kids get another five minutes.

If 85 percent of 200 children can't open the container in the first round and 80 percent fail in the second, the container is considered childproof.

For adult testing, the consumer commission has decided manufacturers should replace young and middle-aged adults with the elderly and make sure they can figure out how to open the container in one minute or less.

But researchers are finding more variables in the physical abilities of people over age 70 than among children under age 10, leaving the agency a little stumped over the tests that should be used.

"Children don't have the dexterity that adults do, but once you get to 70 you don't have it either," said Mark Bennett, spokesman for Calmar Inc., a company that has designed a pill container it has successfully tested on older people.

Calmar's container has a tab attached to the vial that must be pushed forward before the cap can be lifted. Small children can't figure it out, said Bennett. "The older adults, they passed with flying colors, remarkably fast."

The consumer commission hopes to have testing specifics finalized within the year for all manufacturers to use.

by CNB